Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/58

 36 HISTOKi OF GRELOt. of the celebrated Graphe Paranomon ; that is, they proposed thai every Athenian citizen should have full liberty of making any anti-constitutional proposition that he chose, and that every other citizen should be interdicted, under heavy penalties, from prose- cuting him by graphe paranomon indictment on the score of informality, illegality, or unconstitutionally, or from doing him any other mischief. This proposition was adopted without a single dissentient. It was thought more formal by the directing chiefs to sever this proposition pointedly from the rest, and to put it, singly and apart, into the mouth of the special commissioners ; since it was the legalizing condition of every other positive change which they were about to move afterwards. Full liberty being thus granted to make any motion, however anti-constitutional, and to dispense with all the established formalities, such as prelimi- nary authorization by the senate, Peisander now came forward with his substantive propositions to the following effect : 1. All the existing democratical magistracies were suppressed at once, and made to cease for the future. 2. No civil functions whatever were hereafter to be salaried. 3. To constitute a new government, a committee of five persons were named forthwith, who were to choose a larger body of one hundred ; that is, one hundred including the five choosers themselves. Each individual out of this body of one hundred, was to choose three persons. 4. A body of Four Hundred was thus constituted, who were to take their seat in the senate-house, and to carry on the govern- ment with unlimited powers, according to their own discretion. 5. They were to convene the Five Thousand, whenever they might think fit. 1 All was passed without a dissentient voice. The invention and employment of this imaginary aggregate of Five Thousand was not the least dexterous among the combina- tions of Antiphon. No one knew who these Five Thousand were : yet the resolution just adopted purported, not that such a number of citizens should be singled out and constituted, either by choice, or by lot, or in some determinate manner which should exhibit them to the view and knowledge of others, but that the 1 Thucyd. viii, 68. 'EAiJoiraf 6e avToiif TE-paicoaiovf ovraf is rb fiovhev- rrjptov, apxeiv oiry uv upiara ytyrua/cuCTiv, OVTOK paropaf, K(ii rode '